Environmental Problems in Australia

(Left. MacquarieIsland before the removal of cats. Right, after the removal.)

In Australia, our greatest environmental problem is the extinction of native species. In 2010, we had 1750 species on the threatened list, 59 of mammals at risk of immediate extinction and 18 mammals which had gone extinct in the last 100 years. Contrary to misconception, native animals are not threatened by global warming. Over the last million years, they have adapted to warm periods and ice ages. They have also adapted to extreme differences in drought and flood that occur from one decade to the next. The far greater threat is someone thinking that native animals will be fine if we all buy a Toyota Prius or energy efficient lightbulbs.

Nor is urban development a threat. In fact, where the rate of human activity is low, the rate of extinction is the greatest. For example, at the 136 sites across northern Australia that have been repeatedly surveyed since 2001, the mammal populations have dropped by an average of 75 per cent. The number of sites classified as ''empty'' of mammal activity rose from 13 per cent in 1996 to 55 per cent in 2009. (4)

While native fauna is struggling in reserves and in areas where we have little impact, it is thriving in Tasmania where low density farming communities are spread throughout the state. Aside from the thylacine, Tasmania has not lost a single marsupial since colonisation. Native fauna is also thriving on Kangaroo Island, where there is also a good mix of residential and agricultural development. It is also thriving in our capital cities like Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. Our biodiverse gardens with a water feature provide a haven for reptiles, birds and small mammals. Admittedly, some gardens also have a stalking cat, but other gardens have a resident dog that keeps the cats away. In addition to the gardens, our city golf courses provide good plains of grass for kangaroos as well as dams for turtles, frogs and fish. Even our small creeks collecting stormwater runoff have value, with many platypuses being attracted to the abundant supply of worms and yabbies in them.

The main problem with the national parks is that feral species do not leave them alone as we do. Many of them are overrun with buffaloes, rabbits, toads, camels, pig, goats, cats and foxes, and horses. The large feral herbivores are a problem because their hoofed feet break up the tin layer of top soil, which results in it blowing away in the wind. Rabbits are a problem because they cause soil erosion via over grazing and burrowing.

Cats and foxes can actually have a positive impact in many areas because they are effective hunters of rabbits. Where rabbit numbers are high, they constitute almost 100% of the diets of cats and foxes. It is when rabbit numbers rapidly plummet due to poisoning regimes, controlled burns, or viral outbreaks that cats and foxes are destructive. With the rapid removal of rabbits, an ecosystem finds itself with a high number of predators but very little prey. Although the native prey are more difficult to catch than a rabbit, the high numbers of predators ensures they have little chance of survival. Ironically, as fox and cat numbers are reduced by the lack of prey, recovering rabbit populations find themselves in an ecosystem with low numbers of cats and foxes. Population explosions of rabbits in turn cause severe land degradation. Ironically, by trying to kill off rabbits in the short run, we help them in the long run. Likewise, by trying to save native animals, we are actually making them more endagered.

Although our activity in the cities can not be blamed for the extinctions, the management policies of our scientists can be. Australian environmental policy is governed by a prison warden mentality that involves trying to lock up the environment and subsequently using controlled burns, guns, viruses, poisons to make it like it was in 1788. It reflects scientists being guided an ideology that is defined to suit their own moral and emotional aesthetic, rather than the scientific need for an ecosystem to be biodiverse and adaptive to change. Perhaps it also reflects somewhat of a god complex about some scientists. Specifically, it reflects their belief that the environment is something that can be controlled by humans that are not part of the ecosystem, but are masters over it.

The ideology is typified in the words of biologist and author Tim Low, who argued that Australia will only be a mature nation when killing native animals is accepted as a worthy conservation strategy. In his own words:

"Our challenge today is to become more ecologically astute, to recognise that native species can be pests too, that will sometimes need controlling (killing). Australia will have matured as a nation when we can calmly debate the merits of shooting koalas, for conservation's sake."

Some of the thinking can be seen in the words of Dr A. J. Brown, from Griffith Law School:

"Today, for environment groups and land management agencies, wilderness is a land use classification which relates specifically to growing respect for the non-commercial, non-industrial, non-colonial values of those landscapes that have been least disturbed since 1788. Most recently, the Commonwealth Government discussion paper on wilderness protection defined a wilderness as:

"... an area that is, or can be restored to be, a sufficient size to enable the long-term protection of its natural systems and biological diversity; substantially undisturbed by colonial and modern technological society; and remote at its core from points of mechanised access and other evidence of colonial and modern technological society. " (2)

The removal of feral species from Macquarie Island is one of the best examples of scientists aiming for a 1788 ecosystem managed by people on the government payroll rather than a bio-diverse ecosystem that is adaptive to change. Immense destruction was caused because scientists failed to appreciate that, irrespective of its origins, an animal is part of an ecosystem and can not be removed without everything else being affected. Cats, rabbits, and rodents were first introduced in the 1860s. Although the cats hunted some native birds, a new balance was formed in which all species were relatively assured of survival. Almost a century later, the myxomatosis virus was introduced to eliminate rabbits. As rabbit numbers fell, cats turned to native birds. With each new myxomatosis outbreak, the ecosystem was pushed into chaos, with cat numbers exceeding available prey. Some native birds were then hunted to extinction by the starving cats.

To deal with the problem of cats, scientists asked for $500,000 to eliminate a feral population of only 500 cats. Meanwhile, rabbits were building up their immunity to myxomatosis. When the final cat was removed in 2000, rabbit numbers were between 4,000 and 20,000. Within 6 years, the population had reached 130,000. To make matters worse, the elimination of cats also led to population explosions of rats, which in turn ate the bird eggs and chicks.

Land slip caused by exploding rabbit populations

Theoretically, it might be possible to fix the environmental disaster. In an attempt to do so, $25 million dollars has been allocated to reduce rat and rabbit numbers. The strategy will involve dropping up to 305 tonnes of poison baits then using dogs to hunt down the small percentage of rabbits that avoid eating it. (20 per cent of birds are expected to eat the baits and/or poisoned bodies but scientists see their deaths as collateral damage.) It is a management policy that is only slightly below the napalming the island in the hope that the birds can migrate back in once everything else has been killed.

In all probability, the eradication attempts will fail. On other islands and in fenced off enclosures, scientists have previously tried to eliminate rabbits and rats, but failed. Even Parks and Wildlife Tasmania concedes the liklihod of failure and argues that if it fails, it will just try to focus on keeping populations low. Such an option should not be an option. It means that if something happens in the next 1,000 years that causes governments to lose an interest in control, the ecosystem will be totally destroyed. In a nutshell, a solution that depends on government funding year after year is not a solution.

If the eradication program fails, we will have to introduce another predator, such as the quoll. If quolls die out, we will need to reintroduce the cat. Whatever its origins, it had become part of the ecosystem.

On the positive side, even though scientists have made mistakes, at least some have learnt from them. After the disaster on Macquarie Island, Arko Lucieer, University of Tasmania, started to think holistically when he wrote:

"Our findings show that it’s important for scientists to study the whole ecosystem before doing eradication programs...There haven’t been a lot of programs that take the entire system into account. You need to go into scenario mode: ‘If we kill this animal, what other consequences are there going to be?"

Although it may be counter-intuitive to some, the most logical solution to the extinction of native mammals is for us to repopulate mainland Australia with native predators. Since European colonisation, mainland Australia has lost 18 marsupial species. Tasmania; however, has only lost one species of marsupial - the Tasmanian tiger. The preservation of Tasmania's marsupials has been attributed to the Tasmanian devil preventing foxes from ever being able to gain a foothold, and keeping the population of feral cats under control. The devil lived on mainland Australia until around 500 years ago. If it were re-introduced, it would keep populations of cats and foxes under control as it does in Tasmania. It may even serve a similar role that the cayote serves in Nth America. Because of the cayote, cats are confined to the cities. There is no bush population in America as there is in Australia.

While the devil would prey on foxes and cats, it would struggle to prey on small native marsupials. The devil is slow and cumbersome. It can really only catch animals with low endurance (like cats) or animals that make dens (like foxes.) As a result, it is primarily a scavenger. It either chases quolls off their kills or sniffs out dead animals. The abundance of dead animals on the mainland would make a hearty meal. As an added bonus, by eating rotting animals, it would also reduce the risk of fly strike that concerns farmers.

Kangaroo Island provides another example of Australian predators helping create a biodiverse ecosystem that protects native herbivores. Unlike mainland Australia, Kangaroo Island has no rabbits. Although they were introduced in the past, they were eaten to extinction by the rosenberg goanna. The goanna does not exist in high concentrations on the mainland due to the ripping of rabbit warrens that it shelters in, predation from foxes, and human initiated burning regimes that destroy its habitat. Goannas are also likely to suffer from myxomatosis outbreaks decimating rabbit populations and they may eat 1080 poisons left for foxes. In a nutshell, goannas are indirectly killed off by poorly thought out environmental protection policies.  If we let native predators do the killing of rabbits, instead of letting scientists do it, then perhaps rabbits would also come under a natural control.

Professor Chris Johnson, from James Cook University, is one of the new generation of scientists that realises there are problems with trying to recreate 1788 ecosystems managed by someone with a prison warden mentality. Johnson has argued in favour of reintroducing dingos, quolls and the devils to the various mainland ecosystems that humans have eradicated them from. Professor Johnson has stressed that native predator communities need to be rebuilt as they have the ability to remain in balance with native prey. As native predators replace the feral predators, or reduce their numbers, native prey is able to rebound.

Professor Johnson has some interesting research backing up his proposal. He has found that in places where dingoes are rare or absent, and foxes and cats are abundant, 50 per cent of ground-living mammals have vanished. Where dingoes remain abundant, the rate of local disappearance is 10 per cent or less. Unfortunately, Johnson has not been able to research what happens if devils were added to the mix. The lack of mammal extinction in Tasmania; however, indicates that they would serve a positive purpose.

Johnson's ideology is a step away from the paternalist ideology that governs mainstream environmental science. It is an ideology that tries to make the ecosystem capable of finding a balance with itself without the need for humans to act like a prison warden.

Even though it does away with the need for human management, Johnson's approach still has scope for environmentalists to make money. From a pragmatic perspective, no environmental solution will ever work unless someone can make money. The land managers currently shooting, using 1080 poison, and burning the bush will continue their environmentally destructive ways until they can be given an alternative job. Breeding native predators, and repopulating them in ecosystems they have been removed from, would be an industry that could provide these people with jobs.

 

Case studies - Culling on Kangaroo Island.

The failed management of koala populations on Kangaroo Island is a good example of how an ideological desire to control nature has overridden pragmatic solutions that would facilitate the ecosystem engaging in some self-corrections. Kangaroo Island is a 4,405 km² island off the coast of South Australia. It had been free of humans and koalas for over 2,000 years. In the 1920s, 18 koalas were introduced to the island in case they went extinct on the mainland. The relocation worked so well that by the 1990s ecologists decided that the koalas had reached plague proportions and were eating gum trees to extinction. Some scientists proposed that the best solution would be to get government funding to relocate, cull and sterilise some of the koalas. Presumably, they wanted to be funded to manage the koalas in this way forever. At $140 per Koala, it was quite a lucrative "solution".

In addition to wanting money to control koalas, they wanted money to run "public re-education" campaigns. In other words, they wanted money to run campaigns building community support for more government funding. They got $5,000,000 before the South Australian government finally wised up and ceased their funding.

Natural Resources Committee wants to cull KI koalas
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More recently, Dr Clive Hamilton, a professor of public ethics standing for the Australian Greens, has proposed that hunting safaris can be organised so that wealthy tourists can come and shoot koalas. Hamilton's proposal is consistent with author and biologist Tim Low, who argued that culling native animals is a way to get them under control.  In Hamilton's own words:

“One approach worthy of serious consideration would be to charge a fee for visitors to Kangaroo Island to hunt koalas. In this way, we could enhance koala conservation while also providing a worthwhile tourist experience that would help us break into the lucrative American market. Of course, the operation would need to be properly managed by reputable people. Professionals would closely supervise hunters as they track, spot, shoot and bag the animals. As in African big-game safaris, koala hunters would need to demonstrate that they are good shots so that there is a high probability that they will achieve a clean head-shot on a koala that may be 30 metres up in a tree.

For inexperienced hunters and children learning to use guns, it may be feasible to capture some koalas and place them in enclosures so that hunters can shoot them at close range.” (3)

Admittedly, such a solution would bypass the need for the government to fund scientists, but it would still represent a solution that demands that humans play a central role in control. It just advocates that members of the public do the killing that is currently done by government. Furthermore, a solution that encourages children to enjoy shooting immobile koalas sitting in a cage is really not really a solution that encourages environmental appreciation. While the Australian Greens are proud that they are a broad church, and Hamilton's views are consistent with many in the scientific community, perhaps the Greens really need to reconsider the type of people they allow to speak on their behalf.

A far cheaper solution, and less invasive one, would be to simply isolate valued gum trees and wrap aluminium guards around them to prevent koalas climbing up. In city areas, we use these guards to keep possums out of trees. On Kangaroo Island, not only would the aluminium guards protect a diverse range of gum trees, they could also be specifically placed on those gum trees being used by vulnerable bird species. Admittedly, the aluminium guards would not prevent thousands of koalas starving to death. However, the koalas that starved to death would be the weakest of the species. They would be the ones that would not be strong enough to fight for a gum tree. This would not be a bad outcome. A natural rate of attrition is far superior to the indiscriminate slaughter, which can eliminate the strongest of the species and deny natural selection. Furthermore, almost all wild animals are destined to starve if they are not eaten by a predator. It is naive for us to cull an animal to protect it against the cruelty of life.

Aluminum guards around trees - A simple and cheap solution to a minor environmental problem.

A second solution would be to relocate Tasmanian devils to the Island. Although the devil wouldn't be able to climb trees, it could pick off koalas that need to walk along the ground to get to a new tree. The devil could also humanely kill the starving koalas that fall out of the trees, so that tourists would not feel distressed by seeing the starving koalas. As for threatening other wildlife, because the devil is slow and cumbersome, it is more of a scavenger than a hunter. It primarily preys on dead or weakened animals. Healthy animals would not have been threatened.

 

1)http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/nt_report/ntreport07/chapter12.html

2)http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AboriginalLB/1992/31.html

3) http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/media/documents/articles/Cashing_in_on_Koalas.pdf

4)http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/20-years-left-mammals-plunge-into-extinction-20100901-14nmz.html